MarijuanaNews.com : NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre’s Speech At the DPA Conference In Long Beach.

Posted November 10, 2005
By Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director
See
“Thank
you Miss Rosa” By Allen St. Pierre. One Brave Person Can Make The Crucial
Difference.

On behalf of NORML’s many supporters and its board of
directors, I thank Ethan Nadelmann and the Drug Policy Alliance for inviting
NORML and myself to participate in this panel.

On the eve of NORML’s 35th anniversary, there maybe no better time in recent
history to be involved in marijuana law reform than right now.

When Keith Stroup founded NORML in 1970, there was basically one other group
working on marijuana law reform, exclusively here on the west coast, named
Amorphia. NORML and Amorphia merged in the early 1970s to form a potent and
credible organization that became outspoken for the need to reform marijuana
laws.

Today, there are approximately 25-35 incorporated drug policy reform
organizations that collectively raise and spend about $12-15 million per year.
In the 1970s NORML’s staff topped out at 10 employees. Today, there are over 100
full time employees or consultants in drug policy reform.

Today there are principally five full time and funded marijuana legalization
groups:
DPA
ACLU (drug policy reform and litigation project)
MPP
SAFER
NORML

ASA is also full time and funded, but at this time, its charter only addresses
access to medical marijuana by qualified patients.

Today, according to polling done by the NORML Foundation, only NORML enjoys
significant name recognition or branding among the ever-expanding drug policy
reform organizations: 25% of the US public knows what the acronym NORML means
and what the organization stands for (legalizing marijuana) and 88% of those
polled who use marijuana believe NORML is doing a good job.

Today, approximately 80% of funding for drug policy reform comes from 3-5
principle donors; more than 65% of all drug policy reform funding comes from
just two people.

Today, approximately 85% of NORML/NORML Foundation¹s budgets are received in
small donations from common citizens who want little more than marijuana law
reforms and consumer-based information for cannabis users.

The obvious quandary and paradox this presents should be clear to us all here
today:

Is there in fact a popular, stakeholder-based social movement in the US to
reform drug laws, notably marijuana laws, as demonstrated by a narrow,
homogenous and deep-pocketed funding base rather then from a broad, culturally
diverse and stakeholder based constituency?

No matter how one slices and dices the math, the total universe of active
supporters for drug policy reform (NORML, DPA, MPP, ASA, etcS), defined as folks
who donate money to these 25 or so drug policy reform organizations, by my
approximation, is not more than 35,000 to 50,000 citizens, in a country of 300
million and where over 770,000 citizens were arrested on marijuana-related
charges; nearly 17 million arrested since 1965.

NORML currently has 11,000 active donors. If we were to employ some of the, in
my opinion, fuzzy math found in drug policy reform these days, NORML could
declare that it has 45,000 supporters. Our opt-in listserv currently has 43,000
subscribers.

Factually, High Times Magazine, a commercial entity, arguably has the widest and
most popular support in drug policy reform with sales of nearly 200,000 units
per month.

Further, the total universe of marijuana consumers according to recent US data
in 2004 is nearly 26 million. However, when one looks more closely at the data,
one can identify about 5-6 million actual marijuana consumers who can be labeled
“stakeholders” in the current effort to reform marijuana laws. By stakeholder I
mean folks who regularly use marijuana, cultivate it, frequently or infrequently
purchase it and use it for medical purposes. The other 20 million people who use
marijuana do so infrequently so as to not really care what the laws are, they
don¹t buy it, only use it when someone offers them some, etc. I think we all
know someone like that, don’t you?….they’re not stakeholders, and therefore
they are not necessarily potential supporters or donors to drug policy reform.

In calling ourselves a civil rights movement and making ready comparisons to the
four major civil rights struggles of the last century, Women¹s voting rights,
minority voting and civil rights, women¹s access to reproductive choices and
recognizing gays/lesbians, it is not hard to recognize that the common
denominator among these historic civil rights struggles is that stakeholders
misguided laws and legal battles to reform oppressive or invasive government
laws.

A vexing paradox is that while we fashion ourselves a mass social movement, as I
indicated before, the numbers of known and active supporters of drug policy
reform belie this notion. Also, as previously indicated, in the era of ‘big
money’ coming into drug policy law reform, not too surprisingly the biggest
up-tick in drug policy law reform activities occur when, usually, a single
philanthropist comes onto the scene, at times, causing a paradigm shift.

In the history of drug policy reform circa 1970, these following examples of
paradigm or potential paradigm shifting donors stand out:

-NORML, 1970, Keith Stroup, Hugh Hefner, Playboy/Playboy Foundation
-DPF, 1986, Arnold Trebach and Kevin Zeese, Richard Dennis, Chicago Resource
Center, etc..
-Then The Lindesmith Center (TLC), 1994, Ethan Nadelmann, George Soros, Quantum
Fund among other companies.
-MPP/MPP Foundation, 2001, Rob Kampia, Peter Lewis, Progressive Insurance

In my view, in the first three scenarios with NORML, DPF and TLC/DPA, there was
indeed paradigm shift with NORML successfully spearheading marijuana
”de-felonization” and later decriminalization, The DPF necessarily,
professionally, academically and, I think, responsibly expanded the public
discourse from marijuana-only to the larger and more complicated topics of the
war on all illegal drugs and their users, TLC parlayed DPF’s demonstration to a
few maverick, yet respected philanthropists and charitable foundations that
there is a serious societal need to re-examine and ultimately reform drug laws
and took the collective work of organizations like NORML and DPF and championed
the biggest paradigm shift in drug policy to date: quasi-legal, codified and
near retail access for physician-approved patients who benefit from medical
marijuana.

At this time it is too early to honestly assess whether or not Peter Lewis’
anti-prohibition oriented philanthropy is going to genuinely affect drug law
reform, because, as significant as Mr. Lewis’ annual donations in direct support
of drug policy reform, about $6-$8 million per year, too few stakeholders in
genuine marijuana law reforms in states where Lewis’ money has been principally
directed (MD, VT, MT and states like OR, AK, FL, AR and most notably NV) have
enjoyed a paradigm shift in the law.

Specifically, an average medical marijuana dispensary or
cooperative in CA, such as the ones in LA, SF, Oakland, Santa Cruz, etc., in one
hour, on any given day, will have more genuine stakeholders in marijuana law
reform who have been positively affected by laws like Prop. 215 than by all the
medical marijuana patients currently enrolled in state-monitored programs that
can be described as restrictive, and therefore not very consumer/stakeholder
friendly states such as VT (#25), MT (under #50) and MD (#1).

Ultimately, mass social movements are organized to effect big changes on
society, law and custom. The self-interests of those afflicted by bad laws–not
a sense of do-goodism, responsive government or philanthropic altruism–are
ALWAYS the driving engines of successful mass social movements. Also, in most
previous circumstances, a philanthropist¹s funding of a drug policy reform group
is typically an ephemeral one, 3 or 5 years, rarely more. Groups that are not
based in serving the needs of stakeholders and lose their major funder will
likely suffer severe atrophy until either they effectively serve the
constituency it purports to represent, or finds another major funder.

So, is this a room full of political heretics and social dissenters or pioneers
in personal freedom and cognitive liberties? Of course I presume the latter and
not the former or you wouldn’t be here today.

So beyond these frank assessments, there are further concerns and hopes I
possess regarding the direction of NORML and marijuana policy reform that I¹d
like to convey here today.

Some more impediments and paradoxes we as marijuana law reformers and consumers
face in the near future:

-Again, funding base is too narrow;

-The more money and employees there are working on drug law reform policy, the
higher the annual arrest rates, incarcerations for drugs and diminution of civil
liberties under the guise of drug warring;
-This mass civil rights movement continues to suffer
from being too white, too male, too irreligious and too upper-middleclass;
See

NORML And “The White Man’s Burden.” Why Weren’t There More Women and People of
Color Speaking at The 2003 Conference? Analysis By Richard Cowan.

-The most recent Gallup poll released on November 1st has notable and
disconcerting trends: despite a serious upwards spike in the last ten years from
20% to 36%, the number of Americans polled by Gallup who support legalizing
marijuana may have flattened out here as the number of Americans who support
legalizing marijuana, 36%, was the same number recorded two years ago; this may
mean that the so-called Baby Boom generation may not be increasingly supportive
of legalizing marijuana.
See

Let’s Play ‘Connect the Dots’ Again. “Legalization” In Denver and Riots In
Paris. The Total Disconnect Between the Old Media and the Culture of the
Internet. Don’t Be An American Idiot.

Three other brief observations from the Gallup data: Only men between the ages
of 25-50, atheists and western states in the US show discernible support for
legalizing marijuana.

A harsh reality marijuana and drug policy groups need to acknowledge and
effectively confront is currently there is not a visible support base for
reforming marijuana laws as demonstrated by the relatively low numbers of actual
supporters of drug policy groups, the recent Gallup poll (and private polling
performed by drug policy organizations) indicating a strong plurality of
Americans support legalizing marijuana, but not yet in high enough numbers to
translate into substantive, consumer-friendly marijuana law reform changes.

You may ask yourself, OK then what does NORML do in support of the stakeholders
in marijuana law reform?

Succinctly put:
-NORML has over 130 grass roots oriented chapters in nearly every state

-For 35 years NORML has been convening public conferences, with the most noted
experts in the field, on the topic of marijuana and law reform advocacy.

Save the date: The next national NORML conference is
scheduled for 4:20, 2006, April 20-22, 2006 in San Francisco (hand cards are
available at the NORML table outside).

-The largest “protestivals” in the world, such as the Seattle Hempfest, occur in
exclusive support of marijuana law reform and, in 2006, the Seattle Hempfest is
partnering with the NORML Foundation to expand and enhance the mission and
influence of well organized and meaningful pro-marijuana protestivals planned
for the future.

-NORML is the only drug policy reform group that researches and publishes
cannabis consumer-related information such as state/federal marijuana law
guides, drug testing information, arrest data and analysis, information on
Driving Under the Influence of Drugs (DUID) and consumer health concerns.

-NORML is the only marijuana legalization group that has lawyers, nearly 400 of
them, training them to defend marijuana consumers.

-NORML organizes citizen lobby days in Washington DC and in state capitals

-NORML has a large, responsible and accountable board of directors consisting of
19 notable citizens and/or activists, ranging from defense lawyers to physicians
to millionaires to hourly wage earners who range from Marxists to Libertarians,
from gay to conservative, from young to old.

-Recently NORML pushed further into the vanguard of marijuana law reform
advocacy by being the first major drug policy group to offer Podcasting,
video-blogging and the organization will soon be launching new and compelling
community-building features into its multimedia public outreach.

Very soon, NORML/NORML Foundation will become even more
transparent with the public and drug law reformers as one of the only drug
policy reform groups to post for public inspection all of its IRS financial data
from the last three years.

When it comes to the larger, macro picture of marijuana law reform there are
many unique advantages to being NORML’s Director. No,
it’s not all the NORML Director-quality cannabis that is often thrust in my
face.

One of them is scope.
The Oxford Dictionary defines scope as:
-The extent of the mind’s grasp; range of perception or understanding
-Room or opportunity for freedom of action or thought

NORML, the oldest, most recognized and in fact, largest marijuana organization
in the world enjoys both scope and independence if it enjoys no other advantages
as the genesis of the modern drug policy reform movement and nearly every drug
policy law reform group in the world today.

Also, over these last 35 years NORML, and its board of
directors, knows its DNA. It is comfortable within its skin and makes no
apologies for placing cannabis consumers first and publicly acknowledges that
the responsible use of marijuana by adults is nothing to be ashamed of.

Almost two years ago today the WSJ published an interview with BMW’s CEO Helmut
Panke, considered by many in the business world as one of the best marketers in
the Fortune 500, when asked about whether there is a responsibility to
maintaining a company’s brand or identification with consumers, he said that
premium brands, even well funded ones, will fail if they are only skin deep.
Brands must arise naturally from the product’s or the service’s core DNA. A
brand must be recognizable by each human sense that interacts with it. And a
brand must never fail on its promise.

What is old is new: SAFER (Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation).

One of the principle and effective rhetorical points Keith Stroup made over and
over in public while heading up NORML in the 1970s was that marijuana consumers
should be treated like alcohol consumers.

Over thirty years later, a 23-year old college student and founder of SAFER,
Mason Tvert, using the same basic narrative of comparing alcohol and marijuana,
recently passed a no-fine penalty initiative for the city of Denver.

This campaign is notable to me for a number of reasons:

-It logically compared and contrasted marijuana and alcohol, when this happens
in a public forum, marijuana reform usually prevails.

-The pro-choice narrative and juxtaposition to alcohol left the typical
proponents of prohibition, the ONDCP and private anti-drug groups like CADCA, on
the sidelines and unable to mount a counter campaign.

-While the comparison of marijuana and alcohol was central to SAFER’s messaging,
the campaign did not draw the ire and big money attack ads from the alcohol
industry.

-Lastly, re SAFER’s aspirations to role out more
Denver-like initiatives, my recommendations are to

1)
build into the initiative language that creates a joint citizen-police
review task force. This way, police will not be so dismissive of reform efforts
and will have to communicate with reformers post the initiative. The inclusion
of such a provision is arguably one of the most important aspects of Seattle’s
successful implementation of their recent de-prioritization initiative.
And

2)
as long as SAFER’s initiatives seek zero
fines rather than “legalization” or “taxation” (which, arguably no state can
effect under current federal law or USSC precedence set in both OCBC (in
2001) and Raich/Monson (2005)), the federal government will not likely be able
to enjoin the law, making it null and void.

Again we “win” when we ask our fellow citizens to use their brains and its
amazing ability to compare and contrast, especially as a means for the average
citizen or tepid stakeholder to publicly discuss and or debate marijuana vs.
alcohol policies. Edmund Morris is his well-written biography of Ronald Reagan
indicates that Reagan gave virtually the same political speech for nearly 20
years, eventually catapulting him to the presidency.

In this vein, I’ve been doing the same thing at NORML since 1991. One of the
features of the speech is a projection that compares the role of a Bartender vs.
a “Drug Dealer” [show slide and explain].

Ultimately, there are only two known and readily understood models for
commercially distributing a non-prescribed, psychoactive substance. When
cogently discussed with nearly any public audience, it is nearly impossible for
there to be any dispute over what distribution model works better in a
democratic, free market-oriented society: Regulation/Control vs. No
regulation/No Control.

In conclusion, in my opinion, there are currently four important keys to success
in marijuana law reform:
-Flip the media from hostile to at least neutral in covering the topic of
marijuana

-Continue to buildup stakeholder support base, especially among women and
minorities (notably Blacks and Hispanics)

-Come out of the closet and become politically visible

-While we all want marijuana legalized, only about 1 in 3 of our fellow citizens
support legalizing marijuana. That means that we really need to concentrate on
educating the stakeholder base and general public better, rather, than possibly
trying to pass initiatives or legislation that stakeholders and the general
public do not YET support.
See

I’m A Legalizer. What Are You? The Nevada Fiasco. Analysis by Richard Cowan